licking the pith of life
loss & rage
(i) Right now one of my dearest friends is suffering through something incomprehensibly unfair and cruel. I’ve been writing prayers on the foggy surface of mirrors, lighting incense, appealing to every god of medicine in every religion I can think of, screaming for help on long solo drives, anything to make the universe listen. It is excruciatingly unhelpful. I can’t ease the misery of my best friend, can’t offer anything to stop what’s going on, I can only exist in apprehension of whatever news comes, if it comes.
(ii) Last weekend, my neighbor’s house caught on fire. I walk out of my morning shower, glance out the window, and see plumes of black smoke billowing out their second story window. Sirens have always indicated distant urgency, a sound that only lives in your awareness for no more than 5 seconds at a time until it dopplers itself down into nothingness. This time they were an incessant crescendo.
Stood there dripping through my towel as the firemen axed through the bedroom window to rescue the older woman inside. The house haunted me for days with its cavernous, blackened interior until some people came in and boarded it all up.
I don’t know what to think.
If there is some kind of sentient being puppeteering all this nonsense, they must be either immensely sadistic or negligent. More likely, we are simply funky little pawns in the eternal board game of the gods à la Pratchett’s Discworld or Homer’s Iliad. See the Cosmic Chess Game trope.
Every new person is so special
Lately, I’ve been in a manic, gregarious state of being. I’m leptonic, I’m flying through walls, I’m grabbing coffee or drinks with new people every week and I’ve learned so much in such a short time from people. Maybe it’s fueled by proximity to death and loss, but I have never felt more tangibly the grain and detail of this singular Life.
And god, I love people! I love their histories, I love their habits, I love hearing about their passions and seeing their faces light up in the pleasure of sharing something dear to their hearts. Even the people who I know I’ll never see again, who have prejudices I cannot stomach or lifestyles so bafflingly different, have taught me something valuable about the world we live in. There is a genuine beauty in each person. For some you have to dig a little deeper and for others, it simply radiates out of their being.
I’ve met some people I’d like to keep in my life for a long time. So here’s hoping.
All people exist in various states of wax and wane — not that wane is bad, or wax is necessarily good. For me, last year was a year of waning and withdrawing, of domesticity and simple pleasures, of relishing the bonds I’ve already formed and hosting the people already dear to my heart. Partly because most bars and restaurants were closed, partly because I was probably filled with some excess of yin, I was more than content to live the quiet simple life of work + mealtime + evening entertainment; the joy of humble coalescence, baby! There is true comfort in a quiet coexistence, in no greater plans than the dinner we’re making together this evening or the youtube videos we’ll watch while ensconced in each other’s arms.
This month I’ve been a waxing crescent, a fingernail scratching at the heavens. I dipped my body into glacier-melt water; I danced in the forest at night with new friends; I am intoxicated with the minds of others.
I’m trying to whittle something out of the rough-hewn wood that is my current existence and finally I’m seeing something take shape.
relationships as probability functions?
I’ve had several great conversations with friends about relationships as binary star systems, relationships as the convergence (or divergence) of two wave forms, relationships as probability functions (hi Garrick). Still chewing on those thoughts; will articulate in a later post.
Recently I was asked what I wanted out of a romantic relationship and frankly: I dunno. To tell the truth, there is nothing a romance would provide me that I don’t already have. Emotional closeness, physical intimacy, the security of knowing that people care for you already reside in my existing relationships.
Societally there’s a tendency for us to view a life as incomplete without a romance, the proverbial ‘other half.’ It’s a view dissatisfying to me. That’s not to say I’m aromantic — in fact, I will be the sappiest person alive when it comes down to an actual relationship (to my eternal embarrassment and fury) — it’s just that I have no need or overwhelming desire for a partner at this stage. Some people seem to have trouble accepting that.
my darling imogen
The Seattle Art Museum had a phenomenal exhibition on one of my favorite early photographers. When I first started B&W film she was one of my biggest influences, and her Mt. Rainier portrait series remain ensconced in my heart.
Here were some standouts from the gallery (most by Cunningham, some by other members of f/64):
On her friendship with Ruth Asawa:
Cunningham would write of Asawa that "to me she is what I call an unfailingly creative person and there are very few of them."
Asawa in turn remarked in 1989, 13 years after Cunningham's death, that "Imogen was a great friend, a great woman, a real inspiration to me. The camera was one of her most vital organs."
How beautiful is that?
I’d like to start a more constant writing series featuring some of my favorite photographers. Maybe Pixy Liao next?
recommendations for the reader
drink 2 cups of chamomile tea after dinner
lick the backside of a spoon covered in Greek yogurt and honey
write small notes to everyone on thick parchment paper with a nice fountain pen. The notes can be about anything.
hand-wash your favorite bowl, even if it’s dishwasher safe, just to feel its comforting weight
let people into your home even when it’s not perfect and there are coffee grounds on the counter
daily ephemera
I’m listening to: Laura Marling’s “My Manic and I”
I’m reading: A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam. It captures so perfectly my views on relationships in a way that I haven’t seen expressed in literature before. I’ll write more on this next time.
I’m thinking about: this quote from themarginalian.org (Winter Trees as a Portal to Aliveness)
There is something about the skeletal splendor of winter trees — so vascular, so axonal, so pulmonary — that fills the lung of life with a special atmosphere of aliveness. Something beyond the knowledge that wintering is the root of trees’ resilience, beyond the revelation of their fractal nature and how it salves the soul with its geometry of grief. Something that humbles you to the barest, most beautiful face of the elemental.
in the context of these recent pictures:
I hope you’re doing well and I think about you often.
